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VellumPDF

Crop a PDF

Remove the useless margins, keep the content.

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How to crop a PDF, step by step

Cropping is set in millimetres or by drawing the area to keep on the preview; a button can also detect the white margins.

  1. Drop in the PDF

    A preview of the first page appears right away, with a gold frame overlay reflecting the margins you enter.

  2. Enter the margins to remove

    Four fields, in millimeters: Top, Bottom, Left, Right, all starting at 0.

  3. Check the frame on the preview

    If the margins exceed the page size, a message says so and blocks the button — this check runs against the first page only.

  4. Click “Crop the PDF”

    Every page of the document is checked and cropped individually when the file is actually processed, not just the first.

  5. Download the result

    The cropped file downloads as soon as processing finishes.

On a document with mixed page sizes, a margin that passed on the preview can still be rejected at actual crop time if another page is smaller: reduce it in that case. Cropping only changes the display frame; to truly make content disappear, use the redaction tool.

Frequently asked questions

How do I crop the margins of a PDF across all pages?

Enter the margin to remove at the top, bottom, left and right in millimetres, or draw the area to keep on the preview; “Detect white margins” works it out for you. The preview shows the result before you confirm, and the crop applies to every page, or only to the pages given in “Pages to crop”.

Can cropping accidentally cut away content?

If the margins you enter exceed the usable page area, VellumPDF warns you before you confirm. Check the preview to make sure no important text or image falls within the area being removed.

Are my files sent online for cropping?

No, the calculation happens in your browser, without transmission to a server, and the tool is free. A password-protected PDF must be unlocked before it can be cropped.

Is the content in the cropped-away margin deleted from the file, or only hidden?

Only hidden. VellumPDF changes each page’s crop box (CropBox) — the area PDF readers display — without touching the content outside it. That original content therefore stays physically present in the file produced, and could be recovered with a tool able to change that box again.

Is cropping a safe way to make unwanted information at the edge of a page disappear?

No. Because content outside the new crop box is only hidden and not deleted, confidential information reaching into the removed margin stays in the file. To make it truly disappear, use the redaction tool, which removes content from the file it produces instead of hiding it.

If my PDF has pages of different sizes, is the margin preview reliable for all of them?

The preview shown before you confirm is based on the dimensions of the first page. When cropping actually runs, though, every page is checked individually: if the margins you entered exceed the usable area of a smaller page elsewhere in the document, the operation stops with an error message. Check the smallest pages of a document with mixed page sizes before confirming.